Sabloff argues that the everyday practices of contemporary capitalist society reinforce our alienation from the rest of nature and reflects on how anthropology has contributed to the prevailing Western perception of a divide between nature and culture.

This book is a history of the development of an awareness, of
institutions, and of policies on the shaping of the man-made environment. It is
however more than that. Mr Carver describes his own life and sensibilities, his
family and his colleagues, with a trained and compassionate eye and a taut and
careful prose.